


On Wings of Fire

by Lumelle



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumelle/pseuds/Lumelle
Summary: Everyone knows that a close encounter with death is how someone gets their wings. Some of Tsuna's guardians already have their wings when he meets them, while for others he gets to witness the process, sees wings in all shapes and sizes and colours.All of them will grow strong enough to fly, though.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of worldbuilding/character study for an AU I'm planning.
> 
> Basically, anyone who has a close touch with death -- loses a loved one, is in mortal danger, or kills someone -- will grow wings. These wings will later grow and shape themselves according to the person's understanding of mortality and their will to live.

The only good memories Tsuna had of his father were of his wings.

There weren't many memories he held of his father, even fewer pleasant ones. Everything he could remember was tainted by some teasing or treachery, if nothing else, then the ultimate betrayal of leaving them behind once again. The wings, though, he remembered them fondly, the warm touch of feathers in the sunlight, the safe smell of them the few times he remembered falling asleep in the shelter of his father's wings.

He remembered asking where his father got them, remembered getting a different outlandish story each time. He never knew what to believe or what not to, started to wonder at some point if his father hadn't just fallen over and hit his head hard enough to have his life in danger, or perhaps gotten himself into some unmentioned trouble over his own foolish antics. It certainly seemed more likely than the tales of falling down when climbing up to the moon, or slaying an evil dragon, or being caught in a firefight between competing mafiosi.

Tsuna remembered that last tale again much later, looking at the sunny brown mottled with specks of gold, and he wondered.

*

The first time Tsuna met Gokudera, he couldn't help but notice Gokudera's wings.

They were not very pretty at all, a mess of feathers in bad need of proper grooming, small enough Tsuna doubted they could have the strength to carry him anywhere. Their colour was a dirty grey that almost seemed dusty, muted and soft, and for all that Tsuna wondered about the kind of mind that would produce such dismal wings, he almost wanted to reach out and touch them.

Later, when Gokudera was his staunchest ally instead of enemy, a few feathers here and there started to gain colour. They were faded at first, like seen in shadows or on an overcast day, but it was fine because that was how Gokudera was. He started caring for his wings more as well, no doubt not wanting to be left second by Yamamoto's grooming habits, and with each new spot of different hues that appeared Tsuna's heart lightened.

When Gokudera abandoned the ring to save himself, those few spreading spots of colour exploded into brightness so vivid that at first Tsuna thought the red feathers were stained with blood, as warm and vibrant and alive as Gokudera himself.

*

The first time Tsuna ever saw wings appear before his eyes was when Yamamoto fell, and he would remember it the rest of his life in the worst way.

He had known the theory, of course, knew it from his mother's tales and school classes and storybooks. It was a story everyone was taught as a child, long before they could truly comprehend the truth of it. When one had a brush with death, by either receiving grave injury or losing a loved one, they would sprout wings that would then grow to the shape of their wisdom and will about life and death.

Later Tsuna would learn that killing someone was also enough to grant wings, would wonder if such wings were different, but that wouldn't be until much later. Then he was only staring in horror as Yamamoto fell over the edge, rushed over to save him.

Except Yamamoto did not fall to the ground, came up soaring on broad blue wings, and the students gathered to witness the horror gasped in awe instead.

Later Yamamoto would still credit Tsuna with saving him, with giving him the will to live, but Tsuna only cared about the end result.

*

Tsuna wondered sometimes about Hibari and wings.

There were rumours all around Namimori Middle, of course, about magnificent wings somehow hidden underneath sweater vests and uniform jackets, or else that he had simply refused to grow wings for fear of being encumbered and having to learn how to fight again. Tsuna never dared to contemplate the matter in too much detail, but he did notice things, in that manner where his intuition picked up more details than he could ever consciously register.

He noticed the way Hibari never quite leaned his back against anything too solid, only the top of his shoulders. Tsuna also noticed the way Hibari was always impeccably dressed but wore shirts that were slightly too loose on him, the public secret of Hibari's frequent naps yet the way he never slept on his back.

None of this really formed a picture in his head, not until after the fight with Mukuro, when everyone had recovered, and for the first time he saw Hibari lying flat on his back. Later, even as Hibari started to tolerate Dino at least, Tsuna noticed how the cheerful don made sure never to touch Hibari's back.

Tsuna wished he hadn't noticed.

*

When Tsuna first met Dino, Dino's wings were the second thing he noticed.

The first thing were the black-clad men, intimidating him even more in the suddenly very small space of their living room than out on the street. However, Dino was the next thing, the strange foreigner with the largest wings Tsuna had ever seen.

They were beautiful, he noted, especially when Dino flexed them a little, shifting between hues of gold and yellow as he moved them, making him look like some angel from a mythical story or some other sort of a creature beyond mortal understanding. Then he noticed the tips of the wings, terminating in inky black that gradually faded into the deep red of fresh blood, as though he had somehow dipped them in shattered remains of ended lives. Tsuna was suddenly very starkly reminded of the fact that the man in front of him, for all his smiles and fond tones, was the boss of a mafia family.

Later that night he learnt more things about Dino's wings, like the way he was constantly knocking things over or inadvertently hitting people with them when his men weren't around, and was much less intimidated.

*

When Tsuna first saw Mukuro — the true Mukuro — it was the wings that caught his attention first.

It would have been hard not to notice them. It was shocking enough when the young man he had met before suddenly spread out a pair of wings he hadn't seen before, but when there was another pair, and then a third, Tsuna started to doubt his eyes.

Even much later, when Mukuro was an ally and not an opponent, Tsuna was still not quite sure just how many pairs of wings Mukuro had. He'd seen anything between one and three, in various colours as well, different dark gem tones in each pair. The most frequent was a set of dark ruby wings, shiny and gleaming.

Chrome's wings were a dark blue that seemed almost velvety soft, not very large but strong enough to carry her small frame. For all that they seemed different from Mukuro's, delicate and almost fragile instead of his sharp lines and strong frames, sometimes Tsuna could have sworn he saw the shadow of another pair moving slowly just behind her wings, larger and stronger.

It was appropriate, he supposed, that the shadows seemed to take a red tone.

*

For all that he claimed to be a hitman, boasting about all his defeated enemies, Lambo did not yet have wings of any sort. His older self had a small pair, the dark feathers as messy as his curls, a sickly green sheen clinging to them when the light hit them just right.

The even older Lambo that Tsuna saw all of once had a much more impressive pair of wings, strong and broad, with the tips lightening up to a deep emerald as he spread them against the stormy sky. And later the small Lambo, lying helpless in his hospital bed, shifted in his sleep at the itch of the tiny new wings at his back.

Tsuna worried for a moment about what Lambo would think, about whether he would be upset or just annoyed that his tiny wings were not strong enough to fly yet, his child's understanding or lack thereof about the intricacies of death leaving them small and weak. Except Lambo, being Lambo, seemed to forget about his newfound wings as soon as his clothes had been modified to accommodate them.

It was good, Tsuna decided as he saw Lambo running around. He would have time.

*

The Varia, of course, all had wings.

They came in all shapes and sizes, each pair more frightening than the other. There were Mammon's tiny wings that never seemed to stop fluttering, half concealed by his robes yet somehow giving the impression of being much stronger than their size would have indicated. Lussuria's were small but strong, sending him flying at incredible speeds, while Levi hardly even used his, reserved as ever. Belphegor's small wings had quills that looked as sharp and deadly as his blades, while Squalo's were large and strong and shining, their colour painting the silvery stains of clouds against a blue sky. The Gola Mosca had no wings that Tsuna could see, and somehow, that made it the most frightening of them all.

Then he saw Xanxus. Xanxus, with his mangled mess of feathers and flesh and bared bone, Xanxus whose wings were terrifying enough even before he lit his flames and they caught on fire, shining with a terrible, searing light against the darkness of the night sky. It was, Tsuna thought, a mockery of life and death both.

They were not any less grotesque even after they had been encased in ice once again.

*

Though not all of them had wings when they arrived in the world of the future, very nearly all of them had a pair when they left.

Tsuna couldn't even keep track of when it happened for some for them, knew there were too many brushes with death and too many allies lost to truly pinpoint the tipping point for each of his friends. He only noticed the wings themselves as an afterthought, Ryouhei's small wings that were an almost blinding white and carried him around even faster than he moved before, Kyoko's calming forest green feathers and Haru's soft greys and lavenders, even I-Pin's tiny wings with pale stripes against bright red.

He never paused to wonder why his own hadn't showed yet, for all that he had also felt and seen the same dangers and losses, never had time for such contemplation. It wasn't until his mind cleared after the final confrontation with Byakuran that he realised he was still safely flying even as his flames died, looked over his shoulder to see pale brown feathers with tiny specks of gold scattered throughout.

Later he heard that his flames gave his wings a golden shimmer, like fire.

*

If Tsuna noticed something off with Hibari after the battle of the rainbow, he blamed it all on the injuries.

It was rare enough for Hibari to be so badly injured, even more so for him to show any weakness to others. For him to be in hospital for his injuries, known to be so to all their allies, was a rare matter indeed. Tsuna did not actually dare to check in on him, not beyond sending some word through the more daring Dino, but from what he heard Hibari was actually focusing on recovery more than making a sport of tormenting other patients.

Well. Until they made enough noise to bother his rest, of course, but Tsuna wasn't exactly observing fine details then.

As soon as Hibari was recovered enough to leave, he did so, dragging Dino and for some reason Squalo along. It was a while before Tsuna saw him after that, with his elusive cloud no doubt enjoying peace and quiet for once.

When he next saw Hibari, Hibari was carrying a pair of purple-black wings, still soft with down and baby feathers yet clearly growing.

Tsuna wondered if his first ones had been the same.

*

The mafia world was full of wings.

While Tsuna had grown up thinking wings were a rarity, becoming more common as people got older and faced more losses, whenever he stepped into mafia territory he rarely saw anyone who did not have wings. It could have been intimidating except he had come to accept the facts by now, knew that his life was irreversibly tied into this world of death and danger.

His wings were still fairly small but they carried him well, slowly growing as he matured, the tiny specks of gold growing and spreading as he came to better understand the limits of his life and power. His guardians, too, grew and matured, from Gokudera's patchwork of bold and bright colours to Yamamoto's calming greys, Lambo's rapidly growing green feathers to Ryouhei's shining white, Mukuro's ever-shifting multitudes to Chrome's delicate hidden strength. Hibari's wings were still growing fast, spots of silver and gold and blood red scattered about, and Tsuna liked his peace enough not to compare those spots to the hair of any particular mafioso or two.

Their wings were badges of honour and shame, born from blood and fire, and they were ready to fly.


End file.
